Government Operations Committee on Oct. 17th, 2022

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I want to go back to the comments from my friend Mr. McCauley, whom I have great respect for.

At this time, I do not support the witnesses who are being proposed for this third meeting. The committee at this point, under the revised amendment, would have two meetings with the departments, with the company that was actually involved in the contract, and with somebody who was representing employees who were involved in the discussions.

The parties that Mr. McCauley is suggesting had no involvement whatsoever in the development of ArriveCAN, and no involvement whatsoever in the contract process. They had no involvement at all. They are simply people he wants to bring in who have a fixed and specific view without actually, I think, having the background or the knowledge of what happened, to say there was an overcosting that was considerable and they could have done something very fast that would have delivered a different kind of product.

Should the committee, after the two meetings where we get the background from the department and the people actually involved, feel like delving further into the issue, the amendment that is proposed allows the committee to add additional meetings and additional witnesses.

Rest assured that if Mr. McCauley wants to bring in the people he named, who have a very fixed view of exactly what happened and were not involved themselves in creating the app, to support this hypothesis that Mr. McCauley is bringing forward that there was overcosting, there's an equal number of people we can bring forward as witnesses who would say the exact opposite, who would say the hackathon has no relationship whatsoever with the development of this kind of app.

I wouldn't just agree to add the witnesses Mr. McCauley wants to bring, because they're witnesses on one end of the spectrum, who had nothing to do with the underlying question that we're looking at, which is, what happened?

After we find out what happened, after these two meetings, if there's a desire, Mr. McCauley is free to bring in a request for additional witnesses. If the committee wants to hear from that group of witnesses, we would propose other witnesses who would have a different point of view.

There's no need to have the debate right now, before the committee actually knows what the real costs are for the development of the app, what the real costs are with respect to the maintenance of the app, how many of these contracts were related to other Public Safety applications and not just the ArriveCAN app, and how many were related to telephone support and other things that were unrelated to the development of an app.

We're putting the cart before the horse by jumping beyond what we have now called for, which is the two meetings and having the people who were directly involved come to the table, who can add the most light to these questions.

Adding the documents as requested, and adding the additional witnesses as requested, I am very open to what was proposed by Mr. Johns and Mrs. Vignola. Again, we've come to a relative consensus. I don't think it's fair to say that simply because we don't agree to add the witnesses related to the hackathon at this point, we're not being open and transparent. I think we are. We've arrived at a general consensus even if, unfortunately, one colleague is not happy with it.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Mr. Housefather.

I believe Mr. McCauley is going to try to explain what witnesses he is proposing at this time.

Mr. McCauley, go ahead.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Mr. Housefather, I think you will find that the three parties sitting on this side of the table agree these witnesses should appear.

Your comment about us having witnesses.... Your fear seems to be that these three proposed witnesses will only give one side. You said, “Well, we can bring in an equal number of people to say the opposite.” I think, with the witnesses from PSPC and others, you are bringing in an equal number of people.

Having sat on this committee for seven years, I can guarantee you that every single time PSPC or any government department comes in, they are defending one side, and that's their side. No one from PSPC is going to show up and say, “Yeah, you know, you caught us. We blew the bank on this.” It's nonsensical to have a one-sided study only to hear from the bureaucrats saying how great a job they're always doing, saying there are no cost overruns and no government could have possibly done it better, so let's not hear from anyone else on this—case closed and let's move on.

I appreciate what you're trying to do, but we're trying to figure out why the costs have gone so high and are so overrun when people have come forward saying, “You know, we could have done it for a heck of a lot less.” If we only hear from one side—the bureaucrats saying what a great job they've done, how many lives they've saved and how much money they've saved Canadians—we're not going to hear the full story.

I think my colleagues with the NDP and the Bloc have recognized, per our original witness list, that we've compromised and whittled it down quite a bit. I think they're comfortable with the compromise of adding them to a third meeting—or two meetings and then the third meeting is one hour—but I think they need to be part of this discussion.

Perhaps Mr. Johns will be a mediator.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

I'm trying to find a solution here.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Mr. Johns, wait a second, please.

Before we do that, I'm going to ask the clerk to read out, so everyone is aware, the names of the witnesses we have at this point in time. Once that's done, I'm going to ask Mr. McCauley to add the names of the witnesses he believes we don't have on the list at this point in time. After that, I'll go to Mr. Jowhari, and then Mr. Johns.

Go ahead, Mr. Clerk.

[The Clerk]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The witnesses in Mr. Housefather's revised amendment are as follows: Public Services and Procurement Canada; Public Health Agency of Canada; Public Safety Canada; Canada Border Services Agency; Kristian Firth and Darren Anthony, GC Strategies; and Mark Weber, president, Customs and Immigration Union.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Mr. Clerk.

Mr. McCauley, what are your additions?

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

They are, from TribalScale, Sheetal Jaitly; from Lazer Technologies, Zain Manji; and from Rotman School of Management's Creative Destruction Lab, Richard Hyatt.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you.

Now that we have clarification on what is being proposed, I'm going to Mr. Jowhari.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My colleague Mr. McCauley has, on the record, a number of times, referred to a huge cost overrun. At this point, I realize the numbers being thrown out...we need to do a deep dive on them. I'm not going into that level of detail. My understanding of when we do software development.... I have to hear that there was a budget and that budget was blown, because my colleague constantly referred to budget overruns and expenditure. I agree with the expenditure and on doing a deep dive, but constantly referring to it as a “budget overrun”....

I know I'm getting a bit technical, but a lot of people are watching out there. When we pick the term “budget overrun” and $54 million or $52 million, that means there was a budget. I'd love to know what the budget is. I'm going to ask whether there ever was a budget, whether there was a budget overrun, and what the cost breakdown is. All of those questions are valid questions.

I suggest we refrain from those terminologies until we have a good understanding of what the cost elements were and what decisions were being made. I don't think my colleague, Mr. Anthony Housefather, is objecting to Mr. McCauley having those witnesses. It's a matter of timing. Timing allows us to do the two meetings as amended, in order to get a solid understanding of the breakdown through all the documents, and to ask the tough questions we are all going to ask of the departments and other witnesses. We could then collectively have another meeting, where we decide and say, “Hey, look, now we want to hear from other witnesses”, and submit our list.

I think there is agreement to move forward, and I suggest we actually move forward.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Mr. Jowhari.

Mr. Johns, I believe you've deferred your position to Mrs. Vignola.

Mrs. Vignola, you have the floor.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I'd like us to agree. I also want to make sure I understood, because I'm listening to the conversation in both English and French. We established a minimum of two meetings, with the understanding that we may have a third meeting to which we would call the witnesses proposed by Mr. McCauley to appear.

Did I hear what was said correctly?

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Mr. Jowhari, go ahead.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you.

I think the third meeting is going to be witnesses, including the witnesses of Mr. McCauley. We might want to bring others who might be in a position to provide.... I don't suggest we limit the third meeting—if and when that happens—only to those witnesses.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

What I'm hearing is that we're good with two meetings, with the possibility of a third. I'm sitting here wondering why we don't say “up to three meetings”.

[The Clerk]

The motion says at least two.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

It says at least two. Okay, I get that. Thank you.

I see Mr. Housefather's hand is back up. I'm going to go back to Mrs. Vignola to finish, because she had the floor.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

So I understood what was said. We will have a minimum of two meetings, with the understanding that, if something smells fishy, a third meeting would be possible. We would invite the witnesses proposed by the Conservatives to that meeting.

So I got it all right. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Mrs. Vignola.

Mr. Housefather, go ahead.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to present my views in French. I believe it's related to what my colleague Mrs. Vignola said.

I believe we agreed to have two meetings with the witnesses already named in the amendment. If the committee deems it appropriate, we can have additional meetings. The three witnesses proposed by Mr. McCauley would appear at the third meeting.

However, as I said earlier, other private sector representatives have a completely different take on the matter. Therefore, I don't feel that department officials are the right people to contradict Mr. McCauley's witnesses, who already have a very clear position.

I feel we should reserve the right to invite other private sector representatives who have an opposing view. That's why I don't agree that we should just add these three people. However, after two meetings, if my colleague feels it's appropriate to add more meetings and she wishes to do so, I will support her.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Mr. Housefather.

Mr. Johns, go ahead.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

I just want to be clear that we're voting on two meetings, but not limiting it to that because we might come back and want to bring every minister here, as well as the witnesses the Conservatives proposed. We may want to add to that list as well.

Let's just start with the vote on the two and get these two meetings going. Then we'll decide where we're going to go with the next meetings moving forward after that, because I don't want to limit it to just a third. It could be up to six, if necessary, or beyond.

We'll start with the two, just so we can get a scope of what's going on here from the government side, and then we'll come back with a list for future meetings beyond that. I think the Conservatives have put forward some names of people I would like to hear from as well.

Let's start with these two meetings and go from there.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Mr. Johns.

Just so everyone is clear.... Ultimately, the wording in it that helped me was that it says “minimum of two meetings”. The “minimum” part allows that the committee, at any time, can go and add more to it, if that's what the committee chooses to do. There's nothing to prevent the committee from saying, as Mr. Johns has indicated, that after one or two we may want to add some more because of what we've heard, etc. There is that avenue for that.

At this point in time, we have an amendment on the floor. I'm going to ask if there is any further discussion on the amendment. I'm looking around the room and I'm not seeing any, so we'll go to a vote.

Mr. Clerk, could you read it out so everyone is clear on what they're voting on? You were probably going to do that, but I just want to make certain.

[The Clerk]

Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

These are the changes that, to my understanding, are part of the revised amendment proposed by Mr. Housefather: changing six meetings to two; adding “launch and maintenance” after the words “on the development” in the first paragraph; deleting the words “with a focus on the costs to develop and launch the app” in the first paragraph; and striking all words following the word “study” in the first paragraph.

In the second paragraph, it would essentially be that the committee send for, in unredacted format, the following documents: list of contractors and subcontractors; the broken-down list of costs—in French it's “liste des dépenses ventilées”; unfortunately, I'm not that good at translating on the fly—list of contracts; the request for proposals and the invoices, and that the documents be provided to the clerk of the committee in electronic format no later than noon on the 10th business day following the adoption of this motion.

Also, the list of paragraphs includes that the committee invite the following witnesses: Public Services and Procurement Canada, Public Health Agency of Canada, Public Safety Canada, Canada Border Services Agency, Kristian Firth and Darren Anthony of GC Strategies, and Mark Weber, president of the Customs and Immigration Union.

Finally, it says that after hearing from these witnesses, the committee will determine whether other further meetings are required and the witnesses the committee considers relevant to appear.

If I may ask, Mr. Chair, did I get that all right?

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

I'm looking to Mr. Housefather to make certain that he's okay with it. That is correct.

We will now call for a vote.

(Amendment agreed to: yeas 7; nays 3 [See Minutes of Proceedings])

We are now discussing the motion as amended. Is there any discussion on the motion as amended? I'm looking around the room to see if there is any discussion. I'm not seeing any. Therefore, I would ask if there is support for the motion as amended or whether someone requires a vote.

Does anyone disagree with the motion? I'm not seeing anything.

(Motion as amended agreed to)

Thank you.

At this point in time, we are coming to the end of the public portion of the meeting. We will be going in camera. We had a two-hour time limit and we started at 11:15, so we basically have another 50 minutes. It will take us about five minutes to go off and then come back in.

Before we do that, as we are still in public, I would like to take this opportunity to thank the committee. I've been working with this committee for the last two years and it has been my pleasure to be working with you on this committee. I want to thank you for your professionalism and your respect for the committee chair and for everything we've done here.

With that said, I'd also like to indicate that in my seven years as a member of Parliament, I've served on many committees, and it's been a great honour for me to work with the clerk of this committee, who does a fantastic job. I want to thank the analysts, who have done fantastic work here, as well as the technicians and all the interpreters. I want to thank you for that.

Go ahead, Mr. Johns.